freely ye have received, freely give

Walk in the light...

God is truely the All-Giver. One of His names is All-Sufficient One, El Shaddai. What can we give to Him that He has need of? A God who freely gives nourishment and blessing, He is our sustainer. We are in the place of the reciever. We sing: "You are my all in all." There are just too many absolute scriptures to ignore, quoted often but not taken literally.

No good thing in me save God...without me ye can do nothing....In Him we live and move and have being....no shadow of turning with Him...Exceedingly abundant above all we can ask or think.

We say, He is our everything, our source, our sufficiency, but how much of that sufficiency do we apprehend? Where I am adding self-effort or thinking, 'hey, I am getting the hang of this Christian living stuff', we step out of our receiver-role, we turn away from the source. So we say with our mouths, He is our all, but we dont really believe that, it is sutble but we cling to our self-sufficiency. I think it is because we understand it, though it is the human lie, and are taught it from the beginning of our lives. To be mature is to stand on your own two feet - in essence self-sufficiency. And the message of Christianity is directly in opposition to that. The way that seems right unto man is the ways of death.

I have searched for an analogy and here is the best I have found so far. We are like... cylinders, think of a large can open at both ends, tubes. God is like the light of the sun, partical and flow (the study of light is fascinating). When the cylinder is open to the sun the light flows thru it, but as much as it is turned away from the light, the light thru it is diminished AND darkness grows. Until the cylinder is turned away and there is no light flowing thru it or in it. Can the cylinder produce the light? No. Can the light be anything other than it is? No. What influences the amount of light in the cylinder? Its aspect to God. Turn toward Him, and believe that there is no shadow of turning with Him.

It blows me away that it pleases the Father to put all things under Christs feet, until in the end He will be ALL in all. From the beginning to the end of human drama the goal/purpose/being will be a fullness of God in everything, so that there is nothing that is not one with Him. He will be all in all. And forever we will praise Him for His All-givingness.

I have preached absolute dependence on God before, and this concept is tough, we still believe we are to be in striving effort to live to His will. Our battle is to believe that the battle belongs to the Lord. David slew Goliath because he had great self-sufficiency? "The battle belongs to the Lord" was his sure belief.

Not despairing for He does the work, not boasting for He does the work. Not condemning ourselves, not commending ourselves, but here is our self-effort: to stay in our humble receiving place, and receive... the fulness of God in Christ... our portion. This treasure in earthen vessels! Rom 8:32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Praise be to the Lord Most High!